This expresses a lot of what I feel. If an NDE is planned, then the whole build-up to it - say a car crash - was planned. You are right - it does make life seem pointless.
NDEs are transformative, even when there is pain involved. Not every one is lucky to have such an experience. So folk ride their additions the whole span of their lives and do not get a chance to have a wake up call.
For others, like me we have the catastrophe without the NDE. My wake up call was 3 months of paralysis and 15 months of desperate recovery. It worked, but I pay an ongoing price of residual disability. Give me the sharp shock of an NDE any time.
To the extent that life experiences are 'planned' that planning happens on a level far deeper than our personalities can register - so the conscious life experience remains a means of developing self-awareness. Our ability to experience life fully is not impacted.